Roughton area churches to commemorate Armistice

The seven churches in the Roughton benefice will be commemorating the centenary of the end of World War 1 on November 11 with displays in the churches and special services in three of the villages. Tony Rothe reports.

There are various memorials in the benefice to the dead and others who served in the two world wars.
They are as follows:

• Bessingham Inside the church
• Felbrigg A stone memorial on the village green
• Gunton A scroll inside the church
• Hanworth A wooden roll of honour inside the Memorial Hall
• Metton A stone memorial outside the church
• Roughton A stone memorial inside the church
• Sustead A roll of honour inside the church

Many of the memorials were expanded to include those who died or served in World War 2.

The 1911 census records 1144 people living in those parishes, of which the memorials record 41 as having died, with a further 76 serving in the conflict.

To mark the centenary of the Armistice in 1918, each church will have a "There but not there" Perspex cut-out and a copy of the list of casualties and dead from that village. There will also be a display in Felbrigg Church, showing as much information as could be gathered about each serviceman who died, following research in 2009 and access to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records. It is hoped to create something similar for display in Roughton Church, pictured above.

Peter Frymann, husband of the Benefice Rector Janet Frymann, has been carrying out research into the impact of the war on the seven parishes. He said “Two things that have impressed me deeply are finding names of those who also served, and comparing those numbers with the population of each village as per the 1911 census. For example, in Hanworth we have a village of 76 people sending out 42 people of whom 4 died. The village must have missed its menfolk sorely.
“Via the parish magazine we have invited surviving relatives of the war dead to make themselves known to us and to join us on Remembrance Sunday.”

Commemorations on Armistice day itself, November 11, will include a service at 9.30am on the village green in Felbrigg, 10.50am in the Memorial Hall in Hanworth, and at 11am in St Mary’s Church in Roughton.